The Broken Door
by Bernie Boosie
Summary: “I did it, I turned from the Boy Who Lived, to the Man Who Conquered,” I laughed painfully and it seemed to twist in my throat into a cry, a choke, a gag. “I can save the world, but not you, not the only thing that matters anymore.” H-G One-shot


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, don't sue :)

**Rated: **PG-13 for content and themes.

**Summary: **After the war Harry goes to free Ginny from her prison, but is she even still alive? (H/G) teensy bit of (R/H) Harry's POV

**A/N: **This story is another installment of the "Brave Girl" stories which started with "The Crack In The Door" it isn't necessary to read "The Crack In The Door" to understand this one, but if you like this one, I suggest you check it out :)

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**The Broken Door**

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"_Ginny, are you sure... There has to be another way maybe-"_

_"Harry, shut the door and lock it, it's the only way. I can't let myself hurt anyone else... kill anyone else." The words crack in her throat and I run a hand through my hair. She starts to push the door shut but I catch it with my hand my eyes holding hers through the crack in the door. I sigh shakily._

_"Ginny..." I start but stop as I reach a hand through the gap between the door and the wall and takes her hand in mine, "I'll come bring you food and-"_

_"No." The word seems to be frozen in the air and I grind my teeth in my mouth angrily. "You can't Harry, you of all people, can't come here, it's too dangerous, you have to leave."_

And I left. What choice did I have? After we'd found Luna's body, after Ginny started shaking whenever a professor came near.

_"I can't control myself Harry, I just... I did it," Tears caught in the corners of her eyes and she was curling into a ball, her long thin body pulling inside itself, "I'm not me Harry, I'm him... I'm what he wants me to be." _

We didn't tell anyone, just left her for gone, made it seem like she'd ran for it after the death. Left a trail of hints, little bits of her hair we had chopped away at, sprinkled sparsely into the forest, Hermione walked with her shoes leaving indents in the soft mud and she was gone, disappeared. I avoided the eyes of Dumbledore as he rounded upon us all asking about the death.

He knew, we all knew he did, we could see her reflecting in his eyes, but we could also see the newly formed wrinkles trailing his skin, wrinkles of mistake and he recognized his mistake and therefore let us take control.

Her wand stayed at my side at all times, a piece of thick leather binding it to my side and Ron convinced a house elf to magic some food through the heavy door once a day.

"Just until we figure something better out," Hermione had whispered as he had unfolded one of Ginny's old sweaters and held it to himself breathing thickly. I nodded though by looking at her, we both new that something better would not come. Ginny hadn't learned occlumency and it was too dangerous to teach her now.

_"It's too much, you could starve, or get sick, or... You could die." The words had been to thick coming from my mouth and I wished I hadn't said them because I didn't want to hear the reply. _

_"My life for the one I took then, right? I'm not worth saving Harry," And she had started crying, softly, just tears, no sound. _

_"I wish I had never met you," I mumbled softly and she had stared at me incredulously. _

_"Leave." The door started to pull the rest of the way shut. _

_"Because if I hadn't, it wouldn't be you Ginny, it's my fault that you-" The words cut off as the door slowed leaving a crack for her eye to peer through, "You're a brave girl." Her eye blinked in the very last crack and a long slow tear slid down her cheek and the door was shut and I fell against it shaking, terrified, and knowing more then ever I had to kill him, he had to die so I could set her free. _

* * *

The scream would be cemented in my brain, the look on his face as it contorted and twisted into nothing, the feeling in the pit of my stomach like I'd never be whole again, an empty ache. The smell of blood nauseated me and I was laying on the ground crying hearing the cries of so many others, women's voices, men's, little girls and boys, all the images of their terror flashing through my head each of them finally set free, as I locked myself inside myself more and more.

When I woke up on that overly clean white bed in Saint Mungo's it was still ringing in my head and everyone was smiling, their faces looking contorted and foreign. I want to scream but my mouth wouldn't open and instead I just lay there wondering if there was anything that could make the empty ache in my chest go away.

I had won, why wasn't I happy?

* * *

Ron was crying when he came in his face red and his body shuddering with each hollow sound rising from his chest and Hermione was holding his hand.

"Do you think... could she still be alive?" His voice was so low I almost didn't hear it. My chest burned and my hand ran through my hair wrenching through the caked blood.

She had stopped calling, days before, her voice stopped echoing in my brain and the thought paralyzed me. Why did she stop calling? I was shaking all over, her wand, still at my side jabbing me angrily in my side. _"My life for the one I took then, right? I'm not worth saving Harry," _the words pierced through me and I was running everything around me a wild blur of dull colors, dead colors.

"Mr. Potter!" Someone was calling behind me but I was gone my entire being obsessed with getting to her, seeing her and someone was yelling her name: "Ginny! Ginny!" Louder and louder until I realized it was my own voice, until the words ripped through my throat like sandpaper, until I was coughing and choking and falling hard to the ground.

"Mr. Potter, you have to- you're not recovered- you must-"Hands were pinning me to the ground all around me and I was coughing, coughing so hard that I couldn't breathe, coughing so hard that my stomach's contents were falling out sticking to me like a foul glue,I couldn't see her face anymore, just that stone door, cold, and broken. and it was getting dark, darker and darker, and the crying voices were screaming in my head, his scream louder then them all.

* * *

"You're parents would have been so proud, you did something no one else could do Harry. Sirius would be so proud- I'm proud." Lupin's words were shaking as they came from his mouth and he sunk into a chair his hand running over his face wiping away tears. "I wish they could see you now," His voice cracked on the last word and his body, thin, and battered seemed to cave within its self.

Words wouldn't meet my lips, they circled my head angrily, yelling, screaming, never ending, but never making it to my lips, not anymore. She didn't call for me, she was silent and it hurt, it hurt so much.

* * *

"Harry," Hermione's voice hissed through the darkness, I turned seeing her outline in the dark, and Ron's silently, behind her. "We- we can't open the door. We- I think, that spell... Only you can open it Harry."

"Dumbledore," the word relayed the question that had seared my mind since the two days before when I had woken. Why didn't Dumbledore go find her? Why hadn't he come to talk to me?

"He's... Well we thought you knew... Harry, Dumbledore is gone..." The word echoed through the room. Gone. He was gone. I had to take care of myself now, he was gone.

"Help me get out of here."

* * *

The security was thick, people milling about making sure that the injured didn't get out and those that had injured them didn't get in to finish the job. I couldn't imagine anyone would be dumb enough to try, they had lost, surely the rest of them, freed from their tattoos, would give up.

"Can't very well let anyone out who wants out either though," Hermione explained in a whisper as I crouched beneath the invisibility cloak they had brought as an escape tool. "Hard to tell who was on which side, and even some of the ones that were on the dark side, well they could have been forced or _possessed_," She cut off abruptly and Ron took in a sharp breath at the word and we were all quiet. Too quiet, painfully quiet.

Hogwarts was in ruins when we got there. Fallen walls crumbling and seared with the reminders of old curses. The grass was stained, nasty red and my stomach flipped over, who's was it?

"Duck!" Ron hissed yanking both Hermione and I to the ground and yanking the invisibility cloak over us. It was much to small for the three of us, and Ron was literally on top of us using his hands and feet to stretch it tight over our bodies. He swore softly as Hermione attempted to flip over.

"Sorry," She whispered through a strained voice. It was several minutes before we ventured out from under the cloak. I ground my teeth together in my mouth nervously. With all the security wandering the castle, who's to say that someone hadn't already found Ginny and then just resealed the room? Certainly the Dungeons would be the place they searched the most, how were we even going to get down there? Hermione's voice let out a high-pitched cry and Ron starts gagging as a nasty smell fills the air.

Bodies. Piles of them unmoving and gray. Blank eyes scared and dead. Some of the bodies are so small, first years probably. Something was rising in the back of my throat as we kept forward avoiding the piles and keeping an eye out for any movement. A strangled breath had us all under the cloak again, burying our faces in our hands and gagging violently.

"Maybe we were just hearing things-"Ron started through his hand.

"All of us hearing things? At exactly the same time?" Hermione replied choking. We waited a while longer before looking out and scanning the area, there didn't appear to be anyone around other then the lifeless corpses.

"_Potter_," The name was choked, and the speaker broke into a fit of coughing laughter after the word was uttered. The three of us wheeled around searching for the voice.

"Over here," Ron barked with a revolted look on his face as he leaned over a pile of crumbled stonewall. The face was white, so white the blue veins shone through the spots where there wasn't blood caked. Hermione rolled a large stone away from the body skillfully with her wand, and let out a strangled yelp as the absence of the stone revealed the remains of a crushed body. The face took in a sharp breath looking stunned.

"She's dead," He hissed, a broken smile shining manically across his face. "I came back to get her, we all knew she was in there, but she's dead-" He coughed loudly and dark red liquid spurted from his mouth spraying his face and chest.

"Malfoy?" Ron croaked as the silvery eyes rolled around the in the sockets of the torn face.

"Only he could..." He stopped his eyes refocusing for a second, "Save her but she said..." he coughed again his body shaking, "No.... Because of you..." His eyes darkened glaring at me, "She didn't have to die. But you killed-"His voice caught in his throat as he coughed violently his eyes growing darker and darker and then he was still, and silent and cold. I was on my knees next to him, the smell lost from me, I was covered in his blood, even though I didn't remember touching him.

"Harry-"Hermione was crying, her hand on my shoulder and I didn't want to look, I didn't want to know anymore. What if I opened the door and she was dead? What would I do then? He could have let her live! But she had chosen death... For me.

"It's a lie!" Ron was yelling, half-sobbing, wrenching me off the ground and screaming. "He wouldn't have let her live, Harry! He was evil, he would have used her and killed her..." His voice cut off leaving just hollow cries from somewhere deep in his lungs. "If only Hermione and I hadn't made you stop the lessons... If only _I_ hadn't made you... if I had minded my own business...."

We were all silent for a second except for Ron's rough breathing, and Hermione was hugging him and I was walking away, away from there staring blindly at the faces, all the broken, dead faces.

"Hey! This is a high security area! No trespassing!" Someone was shouting and I was stunning them carelessly. And walking, forward, forward, forward until at last, somehow, the door was there, stone and cold and ugly and _broken_ waiting for me to lock myself inside.

* * *

She was on the ground lying curled in the corner, thin, so thin, small and pale.... And cold. Icy cold.

My hands looked so big and dark against her white arms, and she was cold so, so cold. And I was laying next to her the hard floor painful against my bruised body, cold and grimy and it was ok, because she was there, dead or alive, she was there. I smoothed her tangled hair away from her face, the tangles catching on my fingers like hundreds of little traps.

"I came back for you," I whispered, but even as a whisper it was too loud, seeming to echo against the cold walls and she didn't answer. "I did it, I turned from the Boy Who Lived, to the Man Who Conquered," I laughed painfully and it seemed to twist in my throat into a cry, a choke, a gag. "I can save the world, but not you, not the only thing that matters anymore."

I rolled closer to her laying my head against her chest and waiting, listening, a heartbeat seemed to thud, but was it coming from my own head? I took her hand in mine, they were so small, thinner then last time I had held her hand, all bones, like the hand of a skeleton and limp, icy, freezing.

"You're a brave girl," I croaked. "A brave, brave girl." And my hand hurt in hers, it was so bruised from using it to catch falls in battles, so sore from gripping my wand when it was hot with energy, and now it was being squeezed so tight and it hurt, ached and I was prying her fingers away- And she wasn't letting go.

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**A/N Continued: **Please review! If you had any problems understanding anything in this story try checking out my other story in this series "The Crack In The Door". Criticism is welcome :)


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